Should India brace for another COVID wave?

The daily health bulletin reported that India added 8,582 new cases within last 24 hours, despite a rising trend in the Covid graph. More than 8,000 new cases have been confirmed on the second day; 8,329 individuals were logged on Saturday. According to the health ministry, the total number of people is now 43,222,017. With four deaths since Saturday, India’s total Covid death toll has risen to 5,24,761.

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With 2,922 instances, Maharashtra remained the leading contributor. One death was also reported by the state. Kerala (2,415) and Karnataka (2,415) follow on the list (562). According to state figures on Saturday, the everyday tally in the nation’s capital approached 800 as the city recorded 795 new cases. This is the largest daily total in almost a month.

In the meantime, Tamil Nadu recorded 217 new cases, including one from Kerala, although the death toll has remained constant. West Bengal, on the other hand, recorded a 30% increase in new infections over the previous day, with 139 cases.

According to the most recent ministry data, the nationwide active rate has increased by 4143 infections to 44,513. The number of active cases is 0.10 percent.

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The positive rate is 2.71 percent, with a weekly positivity rate of 2.02 percent.

Previously, the single-day surge in new coronavirus infections in the country was over 7,000 after 99 days, representing a 39% increase in daily cases, while the daily positive rate crossed 2% after 111 days, according to the Union Health Ministry on June 9.

The World Health Organization (WHO) issued a warning that Omicron may not be the final Covid variation and that the next variant may be more contagious. “The next variant of concern will be more fit, and what we mean by that is it will be more transmissible because it will have to overtake what is currently circulating,” Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s COVID-19 technical lead, said.

Previously, the same research team anticipated that the latest wave of the pandemic in India will peak on February 3, 2022. That study looked at the trend of the Omicron-led spike in COVID-19 cases in other nations and projected that India will follow a similar path.

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Many nations have already experienced the third wave of COVID-19, and a few countries, such as South Africa and Zimbabwe, have begun to face the fourth and higher waves of the epidemic. “The third wave of COVID-19 was predicted for India using the data of Zimbabwe, and when the third wave in India is finishing, it is now clear that the forecast was correct,” the authors noted.